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Dryden with Variations: Three Prompt Books
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2009
Extract
Among the eleven promptbooks from the Morrab Library in Penzance sold at Sotheby's in 1964, by no means least interesting are three based on plays by John Dryden. After considerable study we are persuaded that all three were from Drury Lane Theatre. They came into the possession of H. C. Halliwell-Phillipps and were eventually presented to the City of Penzance as a token of his affection. We choose a musical term to suggest the great differences in origin and fortunes of the trio, for they represent a varied pattern: one comes from an early collaboration; one is a solo performance from late in the displaced laureate's career; one is a pastiche taken from a pair of heroic plays shortly after Dryden's death. At some risk of anticlimax we present them in the order of their appearance as promptbooks.
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- Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1986
References
Notes
1. Admitting its dubious relevance we are impelled to quote that most Cornish of Cornishmen, A. L. Rowse, in his review in Spectator 26 03 1983Google Scholar: ‘J. O. Halliwell stole books from Trinity College, Cambridge and sold them to the British Museum; he then stole the heiress of the great bibliophile, Sir Thomas Phillips [sic], and ended up as Halliwell-Phillips with half a million. His rare books have been sold away from the Morrab Library in Penzance in the ruin of our time.’
2. The London Daily Post and General Advertiser 4 05 1741Google Scholar announces a performance of Merry Wives and Dragon of Wantley at Covent Garden ‘for the benefit of Mr. Cross Prompter, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Clarke, and Mr. White’. A Folger ‘Account Book of Covent-Garden Theatre 1740–41’ shows both Cross and his wife, a principal actress, receiving 6s. 8d. each daily. Stede is down for 5s. a day.
3. This item from the theatrical calendar is taken from The London Stage. Subsequent information of this kind in this article can be assumed to come from that useful document unless a different source is given. The entry for 1 November adds the puzzling statement, ‘not acted these five years’.
4. This was not the last favour Chetwood got from his colleagues. On 12 January 1741 Covent Garden revived The Old Bachelor with Gibber, Sr in the role of Fondlewife, ‘For the relief of Mr. Chetwood, late prompter at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, and now a prisoner in the King's Bench’. There was a performance on 4 June 1741 at Drury Lane of The London Merchant followed by The Virgin Unmask'd, ‘Benefit a Family under Misfortunes’. When we add that Cross played Barnwell in the main piece and Wormwood in the afterpiece and Mrs Chetwood played Lucy in both plays, we feel that the identity of the beneficiaries of this last performance of the season could readily be guessed.
5. See Sybil Rosenfeld's Georgian Scene Painters for Harvey.
6. Southern's Changeable Scenery, especially Chapters 8-–10, proves most helpful in our study of Oedipus, not only for his full, clear exposition of sliding scenes, back drops, and so on but also for his analysis of the 1743 Covent Garden property list.
7. There can be little question about this ascription. An almost identical ‘Town’ appears at the beginning of our third promptbook (Fig. 5), which is all Cross. There are several identical ‘Towns’ in a Folger Chances marked by Cross. They provide striking contrast to Stede's ‘Town’ at the beginning of the last act of Oedipus.
8. Wilhelm Krüger, whose dissertation, published in 1902, analyzes the pastiche, singles out the scenes in which the Secret Love characters appear in masquerade as ‘von Gibber frei erfunden’, ‘Das Verhältnis von Colley Cibbers Lustspiel “The Comical Lovers” zu John Drydens “Marriage à La Mode” und “Secret Love; or, The Maiden Queen”’, pp. 39–41.Google Scholar
9. Cibber's list informs us that the Drury Lane ‘triumvirate’, Wilks, Booth, and Cibber, played the roles of Palamede, Rhodophil, and Celadon, that the dazzling trio of Bracegirdle, Porter, and Old-field played Melantha, Doralice, and Florimel. He makes no mention of the ten other performers who are listed in the playbills as playing minor but essential parts.
10. See our article on the promptbook of Oroonoko published by Theatre Notebook in 1984, Vol. 38, Number 1, 16–26.Google Scholar
11. We quote from Fone, B. R. S.'s edition (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1968), p. 147.Google Scholar